Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha Correlates with Tumor-Associated Macrophages Infiltration, Influences Survival of Gastric Cancer Patients

作者：Weijie Zhang, Cheng Chen, Zhi-Hua Zhou, Shanting Gao, Teong Jin Tee, Liuqing Yang, Yuanyuan Xu, Taohong Pang, Xinyun Xu, Qi Sun, Min Feng, Hao Wang, Chun-lei Lu, Guozhong Wu, Sheng Wu, Wenxian Guan, Guifang Xu · 发表于：Journal of Cancer · 年份：2017 · DOI：10.7150/jca.19057 · 被引用次数：33 · 研究领域：Cancer, Hypoxia, and Metabolism、Immune cells in cancer、Mesenchymal stem cell research

Background: Hypoxia was a common feature for accelerating tumor metastasis by both inducting epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of tumor cells and polarization of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). The association and roles between hypoxia, EMT and TAMs in the biological behavior of gastric cancer (GC) for the time being recurrence is unclear. Material and methods: hypoixa by expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1), polarized functional status of infiltrated TAMs by immunohistochemical staining of CD68 and CD163, and the expression of E-cadherin as EMT property had been evaluated in 236 patients consecutive with histologically confirmed GC. Clinical significance was assessed for all these patients. Results: High expression of HIF-1 was found in patients with aggressive features, especially for recurrent patients. High infiltration of TAMs and abnormal expression of EMT-marker were also related to aggressive characteristics and predicted poor prognosis in GC. Meanwwhile, there existed a significant correlation among expression of HIF-1, infiltration of TAMs and EMT marker in GC tissues. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that high expression of HIF-1 combined TAMs infiltration were independent prognostic factors for disease-specific survival rate.